Author: The Streak

Valerie Fortney at the Calgary Herald gives her opinion on the record-breaking number of streakers at the Labour Day football match:

Rather than feeling aghast when I heard the blow-by-blow account of the various streakers, I at first laughed. Then, I let out a big yawn.

That’s because while these brave young things prancing on the field may believe they’re doing something daring, perhaps revolutionary and definitely 21st century, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Streaking, the bastion of mostly young males fired up on liquid courage, is so last century — early 1970s, to be precise.

She then gives a brief history of streaking.

Is it all so very out-of-date? Maybe. But then again, it’s still funny. People still laugh. A naked person in that situation doesn’t cease to look ridiculous just because it first happened in the 1970s. And people will still get drunk at sporting events and think it’s a good idea at the time.

That’s why there’ll be streakers popping up here and there for a long time to come, I suspect.

The Economist has an opinion piece suggesting that nudity has lost the power to shock. It follows in the wake of the Greenpeace sponsored Spencer Tunick nude photo on a glacier in the Alps.

The uproar that greeted a naked album-cover picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the end of the 1960s would not be repeated today. Lennon asked us to â€œbe ourselvesâ€ and world peace would be sure to follow. This seems quaint now. In the next decade the popularity of â€œstreakingâ€ brought nudity closer to the mainstream. By the 1990s the ladies of Britainâ€™s Womenâ€™s Institute felt comfortable enough to bare all for a charity calendar. Organisations the world over have repeated the idea endlessly ever since, increasing public indifference.

Greenpeace has rounded up 600 volunteers willing to strip naked and stand on a glacier for the environment. The organisation hired famed nude photographer Spencer Tunick to take the photos which will be used on billboards about global warming.

The glacier itself is in the Alps and is slowly melting due to increasing temperatures. It’s expected to disappear by 2080.

The Wiltshire Gazette & Herald in the UK has made a slip-up when publishing a photo of a nude gardening day held at Abbey House Gardens. While most of the nudity in the photo is covered with cartoon flower pots, a penis managed to get past the censors, embarrassing the editor.

“Unfortunately, how shall I put it, when I saw the paper I realised that four or five very vital inches belonging to one particular gentleman had evaded my attention…”

It wasn’t long before someone was on the phone to complain about the family newspaper confronting readers with a naked gardener’s equipment.

Gary said: “This is perfectly understandable but I have to say you would need to be looking very carefully at the group to spot the elusive dangly part.Watch

“Why anyone would want to garden in the nude is beyond meâ€¦ all those brambles and there is too much potential for injury what with those shears and clippers and things.”

A pair of socks worn by the nude pitch invader was auctioned on the Trade Me website last month with the funds supposedly going to the Winton Volunteer Fire Brigade.

When the auction closed it was being led with a bid of $50 by the Beige Brigade, the semi-formal group of cricket supporters who have repopularised the fawn and brown uniforms of the 1980s New Zealand one-day team.

Police wanted to slap on Asbo on our most prolific streaker. Magistrates said no. So it’s official: public exposure is part of our culture.

Instead of being outraged when a sports event is interrupted by a flash of naked flesh, we treat it as part of the fun.

The Guardian has an opinion piece by Zoe Williams on whether streaking is offensive.

You never see people shying away, or shielding their eyes or, you know, weeping. Plus, whatever you think of a naked person in principle, it is never quite the same as a naked person in the flesh. It’s like a fart. It’s rare wind that would make you laugh in the describing of it, and yet how many audible guffs can you honestly say you haven’t laughed at?

Having said that, sporting audiences are, of course, a self-selected sample, of people whose entire attention can be captivated by the watching of some running about. Of course they’ll laugh at nudity. They’ll laugh at anything.

Naked Rambler and nudist activist Steven Gough continues his crusade to be nude in public, and it’s landed him back in jail.

Gough was released from Edinburgh’s Saughton jail after finishing a previous sentence for public nudity. He insisted on leaving the prison naked and was subsequently arrested again. This is the seventh time it’s happened.

I don’t know who’s going to give up first, but I’m hoping it’s the police.

The Observer notes that officials at Wimbledon are concerned about “unwelcome intrusions” from birds, mice and… streakers.

It discusses last year’s court streaker who interrupted the women’s quarter final.

Last year, Maria Sharapova was startled by a streaker who leapt on to Centre Court during her quarter-final against Elena Dementieva.
She averted her gaze as he cart-wheeled naked in front of her before being bundled off court by security guards who wrapped him in a red blanket.
“I didn’t want to look at all the details,” Sharapova said.
But when told that some women spectators had been impressed by his physique, she replied: “Maybe next time I’ll take a look.”

Despite the roar of an approving crowd, security staff failed to follow him as he travelled through the endzone, climbed a chain-link fence and then a large metal wall before disappearing into parking lot trees.

Not only did it provide, by far, the most entertaining moment of the day, it also marked a feat no one thought possible: Escaping McMahon Stadium naked without being caught.

A Latvian town will mark the Summer Solstice this year with a naked run through the streets.

“The nude run is for everybody, no matter their gender, age or race,” Ilze Dambite-Damberga, of the city council in the western town of Kuldiga, told AFP. “One can wear shoes or sneakers, as long as they don’t go up to the armpits,” she said.

The run will take place on Sunday 24th. Police will be on hand to keep “puritans” at bay.

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